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Spina Bifida

March 25, 2013

The Transportation Security Administration is doing some quick
apologizing after an incident that left a 3-year-old girl upset and
crying when her parents were told she’d need to submit to a pat-down.
The toddler has spina bifida and had reportedly already gone through
security at Lambert- St. Louis International Airport, when her mom
captured what appears to be TSA agents attempting to touch the tearful
girl.

The mom posted the video on YouTube recently, where it shows the
family interacting with screeners who don’t want any video to be taken.
The little girl cries in her wheelchair while one of her sisters kneels
next to her and says at one point, “I don’t want to go to Disney World.”

At first, the screener said the girl would need a pat-down, but the
TSA tells the St. Louis Post-Dispatch says that a pat-down isn’t what a
screener should do and that the mention of one was “confusing.” It’s
also legal to film the process, as long as doing so doesn’t interfere
with the procedure.

The situation escalated, her dad says, mostly because the little girl
could feel the tension among the adults. In the end, her father carried
her through the metal detector while the TSA swabbed the chair.